Saturday, December 17, 2016

The do-over: A principled call for the longest shot of all

IT’S AS CLOSE to a consensus as Congress as come to in the last eight years. A statement written and released by four senators, Democrats and Republicans alike, has articulated serious reservations over the apparent role of the Russian government in the outcome of the U.S. presidential election in November.

A quartet of Democratic and Republican senators released a statement on Dec. 11, warning that fears of Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election “cannot become a partisan issue.”

“Democrats and Republicans must work together, and across the jurisdictional lines of the Congress, to examine these recent incidents thoroughly and devise comprehensive solutions to deter and defend against further cyber-attacks,” said the statement signed by incoming Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-R.I.), and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

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“The stakes are too high for our country” for it to become a partisan matter, the statement said. “We are committed to working in this bipartisan manner, and we will seek to unify our colleagues around the goal of investigating and stopping the grave threats that cyberattacks conducted by foreign governments pose to our national security.”

Former CIA analyst Robert Baer agrees, but also has a proposed remedy, one meant to address fears and concerns about the legitimacy of this recent election, and not just make changes in the future. In the classic schoolyard parlance, it’s called a do-over.

“It looks to me the Russians did interfere in our elections,” Baer said Saturday on CNN. “We’ll never be able to decide whether they changed the outcome, but I tell you, having worked in the CIA, if we had been caught in European elections or Asian elections or anywhere in the world, those countries would call for new elections — and any democracy would.

“The Electoral College before the 19th has got to know whether the Russians had an effect ...and whether they affected American opinion. When a foreign country interferes in your election and the outcome is in doubt and the legitimacy of the government — I don’t know how it would work constitutionally, I’m not a lawyer ... but ... if the evidence is there, I don’t see any other way [than] to vote again.”

Myra Slotnick, a Massachusetts playwright, agrees with Baer and started a petition on Monday at change.org pursuing a new election “to take place in Federal buildings, and overseen by the Federal Government.”

It’s important to note that, for all the gravity and moment the senators’ joint statement created, it falls short of actually calling for a re-do of the presidential election of 2016. And for all the passion behind Slotnick’s effort, it’s more unlikely than a sunrise in the west. If this thing had any chance, no doubt the senators would discuss the legislative process of mounting such an effort — and rightly so: A do-over would require a constitutional amendment.

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LIKE BAER, I can’t even fathom the various hurdles that would have to be got over for this to happen. Many people will file this in the “long shot” round file along with current efforts to persuade the members of the Electoral College to reject President-Elect Donald Trump.

But Baer’s principle is hard if not impossible to argue with. If a representative or a diplomat of the United States is ever to utter the words “free and fair election” again, in an international context — wagging our righteous finger at some other country for some electoral impropriety — we need to get this right for ourselves.

Shameless Self-Promotion II

America from 2004 to 2009 – its new ironies and old habits, its capacity for change – is topic A in this collection of essays and blog posts on popular culture, the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina, a transformative election, and the first 100 days of the Obama administration. | Now available at Authorhouse

shameless self-promotion

One nation subject to change: A collection of topical essays exploring television, hip-hop, patriotism, the use of language under Bush II, and the author's own reckoning with mortality. | Available at Authorhouse

A veteran journalist, producer and blogger, Michael Eric Ross is a frequent contributor to the content channels of Jerrick Media, and a periodic contributor to TheWrap, a major online source of entertainment news and analysis. He writes from Los Angeles on the arts, politics, race and ethnicity, and pop culture. A graduate of the University of Colorado, he's worked as a reporter, editor and critic at several newspapers and websites, including The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, MSN, Current and NBCNews.com. He was formerly an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Wired, Entertainment Weekly, PopMatters, Salon, The Root, seattlepi.com, NPR.com, theGrio, BuzzFeed, Medium and other publications. Author of the novel Flagpole Days (2003); and essay collections Interesting Times (2004) and American Bandwidth (2009), he contributed to the anthologies MultiAmerica (edited by Ishmael Reed, 1997) and Soul Food (2000).